Category: Gadgets News

The Nexus 4 and Nexus 10 were not the only new devices unveiled by Google today. The company has announced new storage options for the Nexus 7 as well. The 16GB Nexus 7 will now sell for $199, while a new 32GB variant will cost $249.

Along with more storage, Google also added a HSPA+ radio to make the tablet more mobile. The HSPA+ version will come with 32GB of on-board storage and will cost users $299. Like the unlocked Nexus 4, the Nexus 7 can operate on 200 different network providers including AT&T and T-Mobile in the United States.

The Nexus 7 will also be available via T-Mobile for $199 on a tw0-year contract with 16GB of storage space.

Along with the Nexus 4, Google announced a new 10-inch Nexus tablet manufactured by Samsung. The tablet is a powerhouse with a retina busting 10.1-inch display sporting a resolution of 2560×1600.

Internally, the Nexus 10 packs in the next-generation Cortex-A15 based SoC — Exynos 5 — which also includes an ARM Mali-T604 GPU. Other specs include front-facing stereo speakers, 2GB of RAM, NFC, Wi-Fi, GPS, and the usual stuffs. The press release from Google states that the Nexus 10 is capable of playing back videos for up to 9 hours or up to 500 hours of standby time, all thanks to its beefy 9000mAh battery.

On the software side, Nexus 10 runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean that includes multiple user profiles, a swype like keyboard and other tablet related enhancements. The 16GB version of the tablet will only cost $399 while the 32GB variant will set you back by $499. It will be available for purchase directly from Google Play on November 13th in the U.S, U.K, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Canada and Japan.

Today, AMD announced a refresh to its AMD FX family of processors aimed at enthusiasts and overclockers. The latest FX series processors are based on a new micro-architecture from AMD – Piledriver – that offers up to 15% better performance at a lower price point compared to the previous generation of FX processors.

“Gamers and PC enthusiasts who buy AMD FX processors have even more to cheer about with the increased speeds and value we are delivering starting today,” said Leslie Sobon, vice president of Desktop and Component Products, AMD. “After introducing the industry’s first and only eight-core desktop processor last year, we now have even faster stock frequencies and an all-new, high-performance x86 core architecture to satisfy power-users.”

As of now, AMD will be releasing 4 different FX processors at key price points. The cheapest, FX-4300, will cost $122 and consist of 4 cores with a max frequency of 4GHz, while the top of the line FX-8350 packs a whopping 8 cores clocked at 4.2GHz with a suggested retail price of $195. The FX-6300 and FX-8320 sports 6 and 8 cores with a maximum frequency of 4.1 and 4GHz, respectively. These processors will couple for $132 and $169, respectively.

While an octa-core processor with such a high frequency within $200 sounds tempting, keep in mind that AMD’s processors are no match for Intel’s Core series in terms of performance. The company has been struggling to catch up with Intel’s tick-tock release schedule ever since the latter released its Core 2 Duo series of processors.

Less than a week ago, Google unveiled its new $249 Exynos 5 powered Chromebook. With such a low price and an ARM processor, Google has intelligently positioned the Samsung Chromebook as an secondary laptop for many.

The Chromebook is already up for pre-order in many retail stores and online retailers and should be available in stores by the end of this week. However, beginning from today, interested buyers can directly purchase the Chromebook from Google via its Play Store. As of now, the estimated shipping time is around 3-5 days.

The Chromebook will be the first non-Android running device ever to be available in the Play Store and clearly shows Google’s intention with the Play Store. The Samsung made Chromebook packs in a 11.6-inch screen with a resolution of 1366×768, an Exynos 5 Cortex-A15 SoC, 2GB of RAM, 16GB SSD, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, SD card slot and up to 6.5 hours of battery life.

The HTC One X is pure bliss. Its design and look is orgasmic, the specs are mind-blowing and it is an awesome phone to own. It has turned some heads in the world of Android phones, and has been appreciated by everyone. Although it failed to bring HTC out of its misery, or compete with the heavy marketing of the Galaxy S3, HTC has its own fan base and the phone has been received well by HTC Fans and others as well.

All the goodness aside, the HTC One X comes without a fair piece of warning — it is a fragile piece of beauty. There are some videos of people banging their HTC One X on the table, some using it as a hammer while some others doing drop tests showing minimal damage. The banging and hammering videos are all fake, and the reality is that HTC One X has a brittle glass. The corning gorilla glass is scratch proof, but definitely not impact-proof.

How I ended up with a broken HTC One X

It was pretty simple actually. I was on my way to work, the phone was in my hand and I had my earphones on. The earphones were tangled with my ID card tag, one thing led to another and before I knew, the phone fell off my hand, landed on the ground and I could see the glass cracking up and a flash of sunlight reflecting from the fissure. Heartbroken, I picked up the phone to see everything was working just fine.

Acer is back in the US and Canadian market with its latest tablet device, the Acer Iconia Tab A110. Yes, this is the same tablet which was unveiled last month. The Acer Iconia Tab A110 is basically an entry-level tablet, which will compete with the popular Android tablets such as the Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire 2. This handset runs on the latest Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) Operating system out of the box. The specs of this device is similar to the Google Nexus 7.

Paul Tayar, senior director of product marketing for connected devices, Acer America, said: “Today’s consumers are increasingly mobile and want easy and instant access to entertainment at all times. The Iconia Tab A110 is another example of how Acer is meeting the needs of consumers, by providing tablet form factors that combine portability and performance for fun and gaming, at affordable prices.”

This device is one step ahead of the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire 2, thanks to the MicroSD card slot and latest version of the Android OS. Acer Iconia Tab A110 will go on sale from October 30 in the US and Canada. The battery of this device is reported to last for up to 7.5 hrs. Acer Iconia Tab A110 comes with a price tag of just $229.99.

Google has out of the blue announced a new Chromebook manufactured by Samsung. The 0.8-inch thick body of the Chromebook from Samsung packs in 16GB of storage space, 2GB of RAM, an 11.6-inch screen, Bluetooth, microSD card slot, HDMI-out port, two USB ports and finally, an Exynos 5 Dual processor!

To keep the price of the Chromebook down to $249, Google and Samsung decided to use an ARM based processor instead of a traditional x86 ULV processor from Intel. Even then, the A15 is no slouch as it was initially designed to power servers before being scaled back for other portable devices.

Google touts that the Chromebook boots in less than 10 seconds, and can easily playback 1080p HD videos without breaking a sweat. The whole UI of the Chrome OS has been GPU rendered as well, which should allow for a buttery smooth UI browsing experience.

All potential Chromebook buyers will also get 100GB of free storage space on Google Drive to where they can keep all their files secured.

The new Samsung Chromebook will be available for pre-order starting from today on Amazon, Best Buy, PC World and other retailers. It will hit the retail stores next week, and can be purchased directly from the Play Store as well.

More than 10 months after Google released Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to AOSP, Motorola is ready with the update for two of its tablets – the XYBOARD 8.2 and 10.1. While Samsung has updated nearly all of its tablets to Ice Cream Sandwich, Motorola has been struggling to update its tablets and handsets to Ice Cream Sandwich, forget Jelly Bean.

The company has only released the Ice Cream Sandwich for its RAZR handsets and Atrix 2, with owners of DROID Bionic still in the dark as to when their handset will get the ICS update and if it will ever be updated to Jelly Bean or not. Verizon is equally responsible for the delay in the ICS update roll-out for the XYBOARDs, all thanks to its “internal testing”.

The Ice Cream Sandwich update for the XYBOARDs will bring with it an updated UI, a magazine like swipe UI, Holo theme for apps, updated Google Apps, and much more. The updated browser should bring about a nice improvement in page loading times while the new kernel should also bring about a general speed boost. Other features introduced by Ice Cream Sandwich include face recognition, an inbuilt data usage tool, updated Voice Actions, and an enhanced keyboard.

The update is being rolled out via OTA by Verizon and Motorola, and users will be automatically notified when the update hits their tablet.

The Nexus 7 has been a runaway success for Google and ASUS. The $199/$249 price point of the tablet, Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean and the killer specs of the tablet make it an irresistible deal. The Nexus 7 has managed to bring back Android as an OS back into the tablet market, and makes it look like a worthy (and cheaper) alternative to the iPad.

However, one major complain most Nexus 7 owners have is the low amount of storage space. Without a microSD card slot, Nexus 7 owners are only limited to the 8/16GB of on-board storage space, which is not enough to store all your movies and music. The lack of a 3G radio does not help matters much as well.

Now, it looks like Google will soon be releasing a 32GB variant of the Nexus 7. The 32GB variant of the tablet has shown up in quite a few inventory systems of online retailers and websites, thus confirming its impending launch. At the moment, it is unknown as to how much the 32GB variant of the tablet will cost. Some websites showed the retail price at around the $269-272, which if true will please a lot of people.

Remember the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet from RIM? While the tablet did not really set the sales chart on fire, it did find a few takers later on, thanks to a steep fall in its price.

RIM has been doing a pretty commendable job of keeping its small PlayBook user base happy with regular software updates. Starting from today, RIM has started rolling out the BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 update for the tablet.

The update adds tons of new enterprise related features, along with more apps and content. However, the three major changes brought about by the OS 2.1 update are as follows -:

Updated BlackBerry Bridge: Now you can view, respond and compose new SMS messages on their BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet when connected to a BlackBerry smartphone over Bluetooth®. You’ll also enjoy increased performance and speed of other BlackBerry Bridge functions as well. So you can do more, more efficiently. Txt away, my friends.

Email and PIM Enhancements: You’ve asked for it and we’ve delivered portrait support for email, calendar and contacts, giving you the option to use your tablet in either orientation to message. This will definitely come in handy for those of you who enjoy thumb typing in portrait mode like I do.

Improved Android Application Support: Includes Multi-Window Applications, Camera Support and In-App Payments. We all love a richer app experience, and with the improvements to the Android runtime, that’s just what you’ll get. Running the applications in separate windows allows you to multi-task between Android apps easier, and in-app payments will make it easier for you to enhance your app content. Game on!

Owners of the Wi-Fi variant of the PlayBook can already pull the update from RIM’s server by going to Settings -> Software Updates and then selecting the “Check for updates” option. The update for the 4G LTE variant of the tablet will be available, once it is approved by the carriers.